Seventh-grader Samantha Hopper lost her grandmother, and classmate Shasta Baggie, her grandfather.

Allyson Casey, also in seventh grade, lost her great grandmother, and may lose her uncle.

On and on, students at Toyon Middle School share stories of loved ones who have died or are fighting cancer.

They're 12 and 13 years old, and are already touched by the ravages of the disease that is expected to take another 580,350 American lives this year, almost 1,600 people per day, according to the American Cancer Society.

Their intimate knowledge of the dreadful disease was too much for Dustyn, the one-named physical education teacher at the school whose husband battled cancer 20 years ago.

"I know what it's like for family members to go through a family member having chemo and what that gut reaction feels like when someone you know has cancer," Dustyn said. "Everything changes. These are my kids. They're losing their close relatives, and they're 12 years old. I don't want my kids losing their relatives."

Her ultimate goal is for her students to live in a cancer-free world, just as they live in one that is all but polio free.

"I remember the March of Dimes when I was a kid," Dustyn said. "Curing polio one dime at a time by putting dimes in those things at the counters. I tell them we're going to cure cancer one dollar at a time."

Or one mile, or one minute at a time.

For the sixth year, Dustyn has organized interested Toyon students into a team for Calaveras County's Relay For Life, the 24-hour fundraising event scheduled this year for April 27 at Bret Harte High School.

It costs $100 per team member, and students, about 40 of them, have been working and seeking donations from individuals and business owners in order to participate.

Eighth-grader Cody Baker has been cutting lawns to enter for the second time.

Allyson walked into Fusion Grill, a local eatery, explained to the manager about Relay For Life and her role in it, and left with a $100 sponsorship.

Amily Turnes-Buttram, a 13-year-old seventh-grader, has been selling baked goods, and Hannah Mazie, 12, another seventh-grader, got a donation from her father's employer, who has since laid him off.

Even in tough times, this group of students is eagerly working toward a worthy cause.

Middle school students get a bad rap, and I'm surely not the only adult who shudders at the memory of those two years of my life. Adults who spend every day of the school year at Toyon have a different perspective of the age group, though.

"I think middle school kids have a desire to do something beyond themselves," said principal Lisa McInturf, who was diagnosed with breast cancer the same day in June 2010 that she learned she'd become Toyon's new principal. "They just need a little direction. Dustyn provided that catalyst."

The first Relay For Life team provided a final end-of-the-year activity for a fitness club Dustyn started on campus, but when math teacher Mark Jacobson was hospitalized that spring (2008) for a stem-cell transplant to fight multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma, he provided the face of the disease.

"They called me from the track and wished me well," said Jacobson, whose cancer is in remission. "I was a convenient person to talk about as all this as it was being built up. I happened to be the sick one when they were kicking this off."

The students have seen cancer's effects personally, and not just with their parents and grandparents.

"My best friend in the fourth grade had leukemia and she lost all her hair and was getting made fun of a lot," said Gail Waltman, 13, an eighth-grader. "Me and her family decided they'd shave their heads so she wouldn't feel (alone), and I'd wear a bald cap every day until her hair grew back. Everyone thought I was trying to be funny or make fun of her. I told them I wasn't doing it to be against her. I was doing it to be with her, so she doesn't have to feel (alone)."

Waltman said her actions helped her classmates understand her friend's situation, and they stopped calling her names.

Dustyn pitches the Relay For Life team to all students when they come through her P.E. classes. For some students it represents a lifeline of their own, a place to fit in during that challenging time of their life. For most of them, it's the rare opportunity to do something from the heart.

"It feels like I'm making a difference to help end this horrible disease and to keep families together," said Nichole Piper, an eighth-grader who participated in last year's relay.

Toyon students have raised between $8,000 and $9,000 a year through a run-walk and their Relay For Life participation.

Dustyn said she asked colleagues about fundraising possibilities to help her students pay their way into Relay For Life and they suggested spaghetti feeds and pancake breakfasts. She "felt no emotional connection" to that, she said.

Instead, she created a Walk Run for Cancer, an annual event with 2- and 5-mile courses, and events for children and students.

The walk-run became a passion, and it enabled her to spread her two mottos:

"Let's run cancer outta our lives," and more inspiringly, "Toyon students care about others."